Phantasy Star Portable was a fun little diversion, if very lacking for
the U.S. players. SEGA has never been fond of Americans, and the
releases always suffer a lack of content. The first game is a good
example, but not more than the infamous Phantasy Star Universe.
Surprisingly, this game has not suffered aforementioned cut content like
PSU and the first Portable Phantasy Star, and is in fact a little
better than the Japanese vesion. This is all null and void because SEGA
announced a huge expansion pack for the game titled "Phantasy Star
Portable 2: Infinity" that features a new race, plethora of new gear,
and more stages. They announced it just a few days before the American
release of Phantasy Star Portable 2 and it's Japanese exclusive.
Phantasy Star Portable is basically a portable PSU, and is one of the
most beautiful JRPGs you can find on the PSP. Unlike the PC/X360 MMO,
this game is complete and should not be missed by an PSP owners.
Unlike the first game, PSP2 has an infrastructure mode which allows
Wi-Fi online play with other people and is a great addition. The first
game only had a local online mode, which means you either had to know a
buddy who had it, which is unlikely, or you can download a Playstation 3
app called "Ad-Hoc Party" and you can play with others that way.
Too bad Ad-hoc is dominated solely by an undeservingly popular title, Monster Hunter.
Needless to say, you'll never get to play with others unless you go online.
The character creation is the most detailed and varied of any PSP game.
With over 50 hair styles, the ability to modify ears, eyes, nose, face,
and such with a full RGB selection for colors on most of your details,
you can create whatever you want as one of four races. Humans, Newmans,
Beasts, and CASTs.
Humans are the jack-of-all trades race, they can be anything, but are
not specialized. Newmans are frail and useless on anything but Force
class. Beasts are like lesser humans, but have better stats that let
them be the best as Hunters and Vanguards. CASTs are rather debilitated
in this second game, however, and have the lowest PP and are generally
much weaker than the other races in all classes except Ranger, and even
then with the new mechanics, they are still forgettable.
There are four classes unlike the previous games many. The previous game
had a class-based system, and by maxing out the level of Hunter, Range,
or Force, you could move on to a more powerful one. Acromaster was
generally the best due to their speed and ability to use the most
powerful in weapons that mattered, namely Whips and Twin Daggers.
Hunter, Ranger, Force, and Vanguard. The best is the Vanguard due to the
large amount of Evasion they have, but all of their photon arts are
limited to level 20. Each class, however, comes with special abilities
the more it is leveled up. You will only get up to 8 points for any
number of abilities, so there is a great deal of strategy required in
choosing what is best for you.
Hunters get level 30 melee skills, but level 10 force. Rangers get Level 30 gun skills, but lower for others, and so forth.
You don't get pre-assigned weapon statistics, however. The more you rank
up your job, you get points to "Extend" your weapon ranks. You can
choose whatever weapons you want and put points into them, C, A, B, and
S. Generally, it is best to stay with the weapons your class excels at
and spend as few points as possible so you can maximize your efficiency.
Before continuing, I want to clear one thing up. Beast Vanguards are
effectively "the best" in the game. Not only do they do the most damage
physically and Vanguards can use EX traps, but my level 200, Lv30
Vanguard Beast with a Rabol Yiei (15 star armor with the highest EVA
stat) and three Feril/LEG (+25 EVA) mixed with a level 21-30 Deband and
equipped with Twin Daggers has over 1080 EVA, making me completely and
utterly untouchable to anything but magic, traps, or getting hit from
behind.
You are no longer limited to a small restrictive amount of Photon arts
in this game. You can learn everything in the game and it uses a
mechanic similar to the old PSO days. You find PA discs as you play or
you can buy them from the shop. Say you have level 5 Foie, and you find a
level 6 disc. Use the level 6 disc and you will level up that skill to
6. No matter what class you are, you can still use all the PAs, but
you'll be less effective than a more specialized class, obviously.
Another new feature to this game is the ability to roll, which while
handy in getting behind enemies sometimes feels forced and not very
useful. It is said that you are invincible for a few seconds while
rolling, but it never worked for me and blocking was always a better
alternative. The only reason to use this costly roll is to bypass very
painful traps.
And yes, blocking is another new feature. There is also a new type of
equipment in this game, Shields. Shields, if you perform a perfect
guard, will damage the enemy a little bit. Perfect guards won't cut into
your limited PP bar, but if you're not doing that, you will take damage
and it will take a heavy amount away which you really can't afford in
hard dungeons.
Also new to this game is a very big storage that is shared between all
of your characters. You have a limit of 1000 items now, but even that is
tiny when you start to rack up a lot of decorations for your room and
more and more weapons you may want to use later.
Yup, there's plenty of new things. A much appreciated new addition to
this game is a town/lobby place like PSO. No longer is it that boring,
dull point and click screen from the first game. You get to walk around
and go in stores. You even have your own room that other people can
visit when you play with them. You can find multitudes of decorations
and earn trophies to remodel and refurbish it if you please, but it is
all just aesthetic. You can interact with some, like fans or gachaphon
machines. Sit in chairs or ring bells, do what you want.
Be careful and make sure that you actually use up all of your decoration
points, as playing with other people can have a little downside. Other
people can plant decorations in your room if they so desire, and it
would probably be unpleasant to have to pick up after them putting
garbage everywhere.
Humans and Newmans now have abilities similar to the CAST's SUV weapons
and the Beast's Nanoblasts. Mirage Blasts. They resemble the old Photon
Blasts of PSO. The Newmans have exclusive use of the Light element
Mirage module, while Humans have exclusive use of the Dark element
module. Both can use the Fire, Lightning, Earth, and Ice modules.
The Dark module for humans will increase their attack speed, and the Light module will heal all party members.
New to this game as well are new Nanoblasts for the Beasts, my favorite
being the Silver one of speed. The new silver and gold ones are strong,
and at random, can turn berserk and enter the "Black Nanoblast" state.
In a black Nanoblast state, you will hit enemies like a truck and have
large black wings. If you are playing online, your attacks will hurt
friends and kill them in one hit most likely. Black Nanoblast rarely
happens when the first Nanoblast gauge empties.
There is also a new NPC called Sayo the Mystic who will buff you with
one of four types of things with varying percentages depending on how
much money you donate to her. Obviously, the odds are always against you
and many times will 100,000 meseta be wasted. You can get a boost to
Attack, Defense, or your rare drop rate. Or you can get a PP cost
reduction. If you get a blessing online, it applies to all players.
Your MySynth partner is also more useful in this game, providing
elemental resistances depending on it's model. But it functions just the
same as the other uncannily useless partners.
There are some rather distasteful new mechanics they have put in this
game, though. Most noticeable are the "Chain" system and the removal of
individual weapon photon points.
I said that Rangers are outright useless now, and it is true. CASTs have
the lowest PP, and because Guns will drain that PP bar of only 170
really fast, they're very limited. Unlike melee, guns will not restore
PP a little bit for every successful hit. Also, Guns no longer have
individual photon arts to select between for elemental shots, instead,
they are like swords now. They have their own element instead of it
being chosen by the bullet art.
There are abilities to increase the PP regeneration or to get 10-20 more
points, but they are not really useful. It also doesn't help that there
are no more of the photon restorative items like in the first game.
The chain system has mixed reactions from me.
Here is how it works. Every time you normally hit an enemy with the
Square button, you will build up a chain. The higher it is, the more
damage your photon art will do. Photon arts can no longer be spammed or
chained as much as you probably would like, because it will break the
chain and strong enemies cannot be killed without effective +10
chaining, and a lot of people I've played with keep doing it anyway.
What makes this really hard on non-melee classes is that by the time you
have a desirable chain, you have no PP for a Charge shot or strong bit
of magic to make use of your potential damage. If you're playing with
AI, they often randomly break it before it's as high as you want or need
it to go.
This really boils down to this. Your weapons don't do the damage they
advertise on their stat screen unless you have a good chain and use a
strong PA. At best you will do around 400 damage per normal hit on
enemies near your level and you are using the proper element when your
weapon has around 900 attack with 2200 being your estimated big amount.
Sure, it does impede people from being gung-ho and inspires some
strategy, but it is also a hinderance and most enemies in difficult
dungeons keep jumping away from you faster than you can run, and there
are also plenty of flying enemies that do not give you much opportunity
for a big combo. This makes it incredibly aggravating along with the
fact flying enemies and some certain enemies take half damage from all
attacks for some odd reason.
Also, while I focused on that chain, I often left myself open and my
guard went down too much. I forget to block when magic comes because I
can't do anything without it. It kills rhythm and becomes too much of a
hassle in many situations.
Some weapons are very inferior in this game unlike how they were in the
first game. Most noticeable here is Whips. Whips were an awesome weapon
that only Acromasters could use effectively. They were able to hit every
part of the large bosses and did huge amounts of damage in little time.
In this game, the chain system, it's slowness, and the low damage all
but makes it a worthless weapon.
This game also sports plenty of new dungeons, while reusing some old
ones and making them better. The new fresh environments and old enemies
from PSO brought the nostalgia upon me and it felt good to play it.
Despite some of the drawbacks on the mechanics, many things are executed
flawlessly.
The animations for every weapon are spectacular, especially the new
saber animations. The controls are solid and the camera usually doesn't
get in your way. Timing attacks is a lot easier with the pink ring that
recedes into the on-screen button.
Sometimes Exact Attacks aren't useful with some photon arts, because
even though you will get a critical, your chain isn't going to wait on
your character to swing the weapon. This is a minor but very annoying
thing you will notice at all times is that even when you are trying to
do a very good job on your attacks, the chain will just vanish anyway
and leave you hanging with some wasted PP.
The graphics in the game are beautiful, especially if you are on a
PSP-3000, and most likely, you are. Along with a very detailed models
and clothing, you have the weapons. The new designs are very fresh and
colorful and everything feels unique when you wield it.
The AI is still as incompetent as it was in the first game, though. You
can issue orders now, but they remain largely ignored and they don't
often think for themselves. The AI is a huge hinderance if you're
playing anything but a specialized melee character because they break
chains and don't block or dodge. They rarely heal and cast supportive
buffs as well and it makes the story mode of the game much harder than
it should be.
Before you ask, no, you can't do story mode online.
A very rewarding thing in this game is to find the famous "red boxes",
which always contain rares...or scape dolls. Even rarer, the Rainbow
boxes which contain the 13-15 star items. Of course, as excited and
needy as you may be for new stuff, there is always a chance the weapon
will have a bad element or something about it you don't like.
You may just be disappointed by seeing a 13 star drop and it turns out to be some crappy armor, too.
This grind for rares has gotten too repetitive I'd say. Without strong
equipment, you're going to die really fast or just be useless overall if
you can fight with a stick and a stone. I wish there was another way
they could do this. At least items don't break when you upgrade them.
Oh, and new to upgrading is the "Extending". If you have an Extend Code
you earn by doing the difficult Challenge mode, you can upgrade any
weapon to S rank if it is not an S rank weapon. Not only that, you will
sometimes get the option to choose a special effect for it, like freeze
or drain. The extension also increases it's stats to higher levels and
makes it a force to be reckoned with. It will work on any fully upgraded
weapon.
The story is mostly forgettable. It's silly and immature at times and
very predictable which is a shame. There are three endings you get
depending on how nice you are to Emilia Percival, your co-worker.
Personally, I saw her as nothing more than a whiny, lazy little girl
begging for drama and just ignored it overall and use an online guide to
get the best ending and then messed with her for the subsequent worse
endings and their titles.
Gurhal is in a resource crisis and is looking towards subspace research
to find new places to live and get more stuff. The battles with SEED
took their toll and it's going downhill. A new enemy is about to emerge
for no real reason, as well.
You "die" in the beginning saving the little banshee Emilia. You get
your face cleaved by a Svaltia and you are saved by an Ancient called
Mika who lives inside of Emilia. They are supposed to take over the
bodies of everyone alive, but she doesn't want that to happen. Kumhan,
her husband and the Sun God and evil ancient antagonist wants to,
though. Through Shi...zuru Shu, the son of a politician and mastermind
of the Subspace Project, he will stereotypically kick your butt all the
way to the end in usual 21st century anime silliness.
You work for a mercenary group known as Little Wing, they work out of a
resort colony called Clad 6 which replaces the GUARDIANS colony for you.
A funny little note here. It was once said by SEGA that if you imported
data, everyone would refer to your character as an ex-guardian, but
even if you do, that doesn't happen.
You can still travel to Parum, Moatoob, and Neudaiz, as well as taking on VR missions at Clad 6.
What makes me really happy is that there are new "Urgent" missions,
which are really just Rare missions. These rare missions take place in
PSO EP 1 areas. The forest, the cave, the Mines, and the ruins. It also
features the PSO dragon who has a few new moves in this game.
Rare missions are only available in online play, and they feature a 300% rare drop rate.
Playing this game in Single-player is wholly unrecommended after beating
the story for that and many other reasons already mentioned.
In closing, the game is very fun...only if you are willing to spend the
time needed to get to the point where it is. The online is fun, but the
online community isn't made up of old PSO die-hards and most are new or
casual to the series. If you are like me and have played every game up
to now, you may have a hard time handing out your partner card.
It also does not help that most people treat the game like an IRC chat
room, and I've seen many rooms labeled "LOOKING FOR GIRLFRIEND" with
comments saying all men will be kicked because they are most likely of a
different sexual orientation.
Among that, there were rooms that appalled me, such as rooms where
people wanted to only chat and refused to do any missions. Why buy the
game if you won't even play it?
Lastly, this is a good addition to the series and is better than the
first, but it can get boring fast because it is still relatively the
same. Unless you are a die hard fan of the game or desperately need a
long, good coop RPG on any platform, you could effectively avoid it.
